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A few weeks ago I had a 1750 late war game of Flames of War with Walt at the North West Gaming Centre in Stockport. We played on the board with the very large hill dominating it. The mission rolled for was Hasty Attack (P.284 of the V3 main rulebook).

I was defending with my US infantry. Half my forces would start in Reserve and arrive randomly on the table edge. Walt had to grab one of my objectives to win but had to take one objective away after I deployed.

Forces:

Walt had a Hetzer Company (I don’t have the list but it was full of the damn things!) which included a shedload of ….. Hetzer Assault guns plus some mobile AA, 88’s and a pioneer platoon on foot with flamethrowers I believe.

I won’t go into much detail as the pictures speak for themselves. Walt removed the objective on my left flank. I placed the ARP in Immediate Ambush and used his deployment to assume he would come for the centre of the line.

Walt obliged and came across the centre of the table, ignoring the village and lowland with its woods for now. He had placed a minefield at the base of the hill which really hampered him later on more than me.

The fields of fire were not that great and I just sat around waiting for a decent shot at the enemy. The Axis 88’s could not see anything to shoot at so the Assault guns and later the AA guns pretty much decided to cut to the right and come at me from the lowland.

My AT guns got some shots in but found themselves pinned quite a lot. Eventually my left crumbled for the loss of some Hetzers.

Sadly for me, some of my random reserves turned up on the left leaving them in the open facing incoming Hetzers.

Walt brought his pioneers up onto the hill but could not come at me as I had so much firepower aimed at the hill that it would have been certain death for infantry. II had at least a dozen rifle stands, 4 bazookas, 4 HMGs and a couple of LMGs aimed his way, plus Sherman tanks!

It was hopeless to try to come in from the Axis left as I had 4 bazookas covering the hillside against 4 Hetzers on the hilltop.

In the end, we reached 2.5 hours and called an end to the game. I have no doubt that given time, Walt could have rolled up my left flank and taken an objective but for heavy loss. Either way it would have probably been a 4-3 to one of us.

It was a good learning exercise. The Axis force was not really in a good position to assault over such a long hill into the heart of the US defences. If the terrain had been different I think the game would have reached a clear conclusion. Walt I think commented that maybe he should have taken the other objective off on my right flank. As he ended up going for the left flank anyway, he could have won the game in the allotted time….. maybe.

My AT guns once again proved the stars with some good dice rolling under pressure of advancing forces. I really DO NOT like scattered reserves.